Tragedy
At least 330 killed in Peru earthquake
More than 330 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured after a powerful earthquake hit Peru’s coast near the capital, toppling buildings and setting off landslides.
A state of emergency has been declared after the towns of Pisco, Chincha, and other localities in Peru’s southern coastal region were said to be in ruins.
Ica, a city of 650,000 people was worst hit by the earthquake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale.
The earthquake, which struck at 6.40pm (11.40pm GMT) about 90 miles southeast of Lima, is the biggest to hit the South American nation in decades.
Aristides Mussio, the Civil Defense Commander, said one person was killed in Lima and 336 in the region of Ica.
News reports said dozens of people were crowding hospitals in the city seeking help even though the hospitals had cracks and other structural damage.
Juan Mendoza the mayor of Pisco, said dozens of bodies were scattered on the streets and at least 200 people were buried under the rubble of a collapsed church where they were attending a service.
“The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets,” a sobbing Mr Mendoza told LIma radio station CPN. “We don’t have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen, churches, stores, hotels, everything is destroyed.”
State doctors called off a national strike that began on Wednesday to handle the emergency.
Deputy Health Minister Jose Calderon called the situation “dramatic”. He encouraged Peruvians to donate blood for the injured and said a convoy of doctors and nurses was headed to the Ica area.
The government rushed police, soldiers, doctors and aid to Ica, but an APTN cameraman trying to reach the city reported that traffic was paralyzed on the Pan American Highway by giant cracks in the pavement and fallen power lines. He said hundreds of vehicles were backed up.
The US Geological Survey said Wednesday’s powerful earthquake hit at a depth of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). Four strong aftershocks ranging from magnitudes of 5.4 to 5.9 were felt afterward.
An Associated Press photographer said some homes had collapsed in the center of Lima and that many people had fled into the streets for safety. The capital shook for more than a minute.
“This is the strongest earthquake I’ve ever felt,” said Maria Pilar Mena, 47, a sandwich vendor in Lima. “When the quake struck, I thought it would never end.”
President Alan Garcia ordered all police personnel to the streets of Lima to keep order and said he was sending the health minister and two other Cabinet members to Ica.
Pope Benedict XVI offered prayers today for the victims of the earthquake and called for immediate assistance for the hundreds of people that had been injured or made homeless. “(The Pope) encourages institutions and people of goodwill to offer the necessary help to those harmed, with a spirit of Christian solidarity and charity,” the Vatican said in a telegram, signed by Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone.
The Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coasts of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama. A tsunami watch was issued for the rest of Central America and Mexico and an advisory for Hawaii.
The center canceled all the alerts after about two hours, but it said the quake had caused an estimated 10ins (25cm) tsunami near the epicentre.
“It wasn’t big enough to be destructive,” said Stuart Weinstein, the centre’s assistant director.
Police reported that large boulders shook loose from hills and were blocking the Central Highway east of Lima. The quake also knocked out telephone and mobile phone service in the capital. Firefighters were called to put out a fire in a shopping centre. The last time a quake of magnitude 7.0 or larger struck Peru was in September 2005, when a 7.5 magnitude earthquake rocked Peru’s northern jungle, killing four people. In 2001, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck near the southern Andean city of Arequipa, killing 71 people.
The latest Peru quake occurred in a so-called subduction zone, where one section of the Earth’s crust dives under another, said Dale Grant, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.
Some of the world’s biggest quakes strike in subduction zones, including the catastrophic Indian Ocean tremor in 2004 that generated deadly tsunami waves.
Oxfam has sent teams to assess the damage and humanitarian needs in the region south of Lima, as people stream from the countryside towards towns, looking for help.
Celia Aldana, spokesperson for Oxfam International in Peru said: “It is really hard to tell what the full effect is, as communications are very patchy and many areas are cut off by landslides and collapsed bridges.
"I have lived through four earthquakes and can remember three of them but this has been the worst of all. The tremors lasted for minutes and were terrible.”
How earthquakes are measured
Any earthquake that measures between 7.0 and 7.9 on the Richter scale is classified as a major earthquake and can be destructive over 100 miles across in populated areas.
There are about 18 earthquakes within this scale each year.
With a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale, Peru’s earthquake borders on the status of ‘great earthquake’ (from 8.0-8.9) which devastates areas several thousands miles across.
Great earthquakes usually occur once a year and in areas at high seismologic risk. However, there have already been two earthquakes that measured 8.1 this year, in the Kuril Islands in January and in the Salomon Islands in April.
The earthquake that devastated the town of San Francisco in 1906 was measured at 8.0.
Only one week ago an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude hit off Jakarta’s coast, evoking the fear of a Tsunami. However, the magnitude of the shock which hit the Indonesian coast in December 2004 was a much bigger 9.5.
In April in Britain an earthquake that had its epicentre in Kent reached a magnitude of 4.3, which is classified as light.
The Richter scale is not a physical device, but a mathematical formula. The magnitude of an earthquake is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves recorded on a seismogram at a certain period. In other words, it is calculated on the basis of the width of the wiggles drawn by a seismograph.
The magnitude is not the only factor which determines the effects of an earthquake. It also depends on the depth of the hypocenter of the shock.
(Published by Times Online, August 16, 2007)
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